Boss of company set to make vaccine slams Daniel Andrews’ ‘map for misery’
Pressure continues to mount on Daniel Andrews to rethink his road map out of Victoria’s restrictions, with the head of the company chosen to manufacture a coronavirus vaccine calling it a recipe for misery and questioning whether it will work. Top business leaders and union bosses have their say on the plan out of the crisis.
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The chairman of the company chosen to manufacture a coronavirus vaccine for Australia has slammed Daniel Andrews’ lockdown strategy, calling it a “map for misery”.
Brian McNamee, who turned CSL into a biotech superpower, warned Victoria faced disaster due to its extreme targets for lifting restrictions, and criticised the government for having “zero” interaction with independent experts keen to help, saying he did not know anyone qualified who supported the state’s strategy.
Melbourne-based Dr McNamee, one of the nation’s most respected businessmen, said: “Our response is disproportionate to the medical challenge.
“The Premier is saying his opinion won’t change because of anger, but the truth of the matter is that I don’t think he even understands the severity of what is occurring, both in the economy and also in the human consequences.
“I don’t know anyone who supports this plan.
“We are an absolute outlier internationally.
“It’s the most crushing policy in a sophisticated modern country with a dynamic city like Melbourne.”
Dr McNamee predicted Mr Andrews would eventually have to buckle, saying: “I’m concerned the targets being established will mean that our misery will be a permanent state.
“So we’re only in some ways debating when the Premier has to back down and not if.”
Business and industry leaders including Australian Workers’ Union state secretary Ben Davis, Kmart Group managing director Ian Bailey, Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey, Australian Retailers Association chief Paul Zahra and Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp yesterday joined Dr McNamee in criticising the state’s “unrealistic” and “overambitious” targets for easing restrictions.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE GOVERNMENT’S STRATEGY?
Brian McNamee: It’s a map for misery for Victoria. Why do I say that? There’s so many factors that influence that. First of all the modelling is too narrow in the context they’re looking for. Your model is only as good as your inputs and what you are trying to achieve with that model.
IS THIS AN ELIMINATION OR A SUPPRESSION STRATEGY?
It would appear to be very close to an elimination strategy or a level of suppression that is so severe that it borders on elimination.
HAVE YOU SEEN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD RUN AN ELIMINATION STRATEGY WITH BLANKET LOCKDOWNS LIKE THIS?
No. Our response is disproportionate to the medical challenge. You can point to New Zealand, but New Zealand barely counts. If you look at larger economies with big cities, no one is attempting to do what he’s doing. So he’s coming up with a strategy that is completely out of the ordinary from what is being done internationally. Why would we in Victoria want to embark upon a novel approach that is inconsistent with policies internationally, that is really inconsistent with the medical challenge? We know more about the virus than we did six months ago.
DO YOU THINK WE’VE IMPROVED OUR CAPACITY TO TREAT PEOPLE?
I believe that we are getting better at treating people, but it is quite a nasty disease for the very elderly. We see that in the data. And it remains the reality if you have significant comorbidities. But you’re in a nursing home for a reason. That’s why I believe our entire strategy is wrong. It should be about protecting the vulnerable. It’s a management exercise. The leadership we need is best-in-class, world’s-best management of the risk.
WHAT OF THE PEOPLE WHO DON’T DIE BUT SUFFER LONG-TERM DEBILITATING ILLNESS?
It’s certainly true that it’s a difficult virus, but that’s also true of many viruses. Many people have long-term effects. This is a nasty virus but the evidence internationally is that most people, particularly young people, recover fully from this disease. This isn’t ebola. If this was ebola in the community I get it, but this is a disproportionate response to a disease that we better understand now. We can better manage the vulnerable and we’re getting better and treating and managing it.
WHY HAVE WE GONE DOWN THIS ROAD?
I do wonder if the Premier is burdened by the excess mortality we are seeing in the elderly that some might suggest is because of the failures of the Victorian government in trying to protect us. Time will tell what this inquiry will show. But there’s enough chatter out there that it was very poorly managed initially and the contact tracing … I heard from the Department of Health, it was chaos in the Department of Health, the whole management exercise. So it is a continuing failure of the bureaucracy that is burdening the Premier. So, his only solution is to try to crush it because I guess he has no confidence in managing it.
WHAT HAS YOUR INTERACTION WITH THE VICTORIAN PUBLIC SERVICE BEEN LIKE?
Zero. I’m not the only business leader who has had no contact. Resources have been offered by many companies. No interest in assistance.
HAVE YOU HAD A CONVERSATION WITH THE HEALTH MINISTER OR THE PREMIER?
Only federal ministers. No locals. Nothing. Zero.
DO YOU THINK THAT’S ODD?
It was always a surprise to me that they weren’t trying to get the most experienced people to focus on what needs to be done. This was a management task. It isn’t a public relations task. This was a tough management job and bureaucracy is more about policy: it’s rarely been good at execution, that’s why they outsource most of their execution. This was and remains a tremendous management challenge and my understanding is that their model assumed continued failure of contact tracing, which is why we have such impossible-to-meet targets.
Even the modellers are walking away from the Premier using it as the thing to beat the public over the head with. Even the modellers are saying “you’re going a bit too far with this, you asked us to do some work with these inputs, that’s all you asked us to do”.
They’re not wanting to accept that this should be essentially a military type of management exercise with superb execution and getting the best people be it BHP, Wesfarmers staff, whoever, to work together to get the best plan. No one’s been involved. It’s been a public health cabal where all the public health officials talk to each other and we’re so lucky they’re telling us what we have to do.
WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE QUALITY OF SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN ADVISING THE GOVERNMENT — PROFESSOR BRETT SUTTON, FOR EXAMPLE?
I don’t know him. He’s trained in tropical medicine and he has a public health background. This is an incredible challenge he’s been given. He was a relatively mid-ranking bureaucrat. That tells us something, doesn’t it? I’m pretty horrified if it is true that we’re being under lockdown with regard to curfew and that was not a recommendation on medical grounds, and he didn’t have the courage to share that with us as our senior official.
We’ve been under the impression the Chief Health Officer had some data that confirmed that was a good thing to do. To think he was silent until now is remarkable. It tells about communication and who’s calling the shots here. I’m not questioning his qualifications, but I am questioning today his courage when he didn’t speak out and tell us that we’re in curfew not on his advice.
WHAT’S THE IMPACT ON THE VICTORIAN ECONOMY?
It’s devastating. We have incredible policies that are crushing enterprise. It’s not crushing the public service or those providing advice to the government. We have this shocking mismatch where the pain is being suffered by all those in the enterprise arm of the economy. And we’re being told it’s for our own good.
The Premier is saying his opinion won’t change because of anger, but the truth of the matter is that I don’t think he even understands the severity of what is occurring, both in the economy and also in the human consequences. It’s a very narrow group of people who have been given a very difficult job and it’s unclear whether they were really ready or well-prepared for this.
The problem is we’re all losing confidence because every time we learn something new, it isn’t what we understood. Is it true that we’re mainly in curfew because of the police force?
THAT’S MY UNDERSTANDING …
The Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police should resign over that. That he imprisoned his fellow citizens not on medical advice but for rostering convenience is such an abrogation of duty. I’m stunned. It’s shocking. It’s wrong.
*Editor’s note: Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said on radio Thursday he did not ask for a curfew
DO YOU THINK IT IS STRANGE THEY ARE TREATING MELBOURNE AS ONE ENTITY?
There’s such a suspicion that there is a political overlay to rational decision-making. They would rather use a blunt instrument that suits their political purposes than actually deal with the reality of the data in front of them and react with a more nuanced approach. It suits them to do it this way.
DO YOU THINK THE GOVERNMENT’S STRATEGY WILL WORK?
There will still be disease. I’m concerned the targets being established will mean that our misery will be a permanent state. So we’re only in some ways debating “when” the Premier has to back down, and not “if”.
HOW MANY PEOPLE WHO YOU SPEAK TO, WHO ARE INFORMED, BACK THE PLAN?
I don’t know anyone who supports this plan. It’s a public health cabal of people who think this is good idea and they’ve got the votes and they’ve got a great communicator as leader and they’re pushing hard.
I think the numbers will come down but the cure is far worse now. It’s very disappointing. We are an absolute outlier internationally. It’s the most crushing policy in a modern country with a dynamic city like Melbourne. No one is attempting to do what he’s doing here. I have no idea who gave him the advice that this is appropriate for Melbourne and Victoria.
DON’T BANK ON A VACCINE
Australian authorities are being warned not “bank on a vaccine” by the boss of the company charged with manufacturing it.
CSL chair Brian McNamee, said it would be a mistake for Governments to assume a vaccine was going to turn up.
He stressed the Victorian government’s lockdown strategy relied on the arrival of a vaccine but that it could be a very long way off.
“If they had asked us we would have told them that drug development is a very complex thing,” Dr McNamee said.
“We can’t bank on a vaccine. I think the treatments are improving but we have to learn to live with COVID. We have to manage it.”
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